How to Discern Fact From Fiction

The Roots of Our Own Thinking

What is it that prevents us as humans from seeing the true nature of a situation?

In most situations, a simple lack of clarity is to blame. Many times, people project an ideal onto others that is completely unrealistic to attain.

Other times, it is the single-mindedness of someone who may be so self-obsessed or consumed with someone or something that reality is no longer existent.

In this hub, I will explore the prevalence of our internet use, as well as, how dreaming influences the decisions we make in the real world. Many times, the former is unrecognizable to the latter, yet many believe the two entities are interconnected.

The Message is in the Medium

With the medium of social media these days, one's imaginative notion of a person cannot ever be fully maximized when applied to the reality of the situation. The power of the message and the medium can no longer be separated. Thus, people begin to escape reality in ways that are unhealthy such as the new phenomenon "Catfishing".

Those who may have been resented by society may also play out in a fantasy world that is only true in their own minds. The self-isloation in our world now leaves us to think freely about any situation; this is actually worse than lying or cheating.

Walt Whitman once said that, "We have a natural morality within all of us", and that every individual has his or her own unique set of circumstances. Conversely, it is critical to be aware of the roots of your own thinking.

Isolation from the community and from loved ones has been an increasing result of heavy social media use. | Source

Crimes Against Nature

Abusing people's privacy on the internet, as well as, the phenomenon of catfishing are 21st century crimes against nature.

We saw crimes against nature documented hundreds of years ago, in cautionary science-fiction stories, such as Hawthorne's "The Birthmark"- where a Scientist abuses the meaning of what perfection is.

The similarity between these crimes of nature is that the material knowledge derived from these psychological crimes is irrelevant in proving the nature of one's heart or true love.

The dichotomy of needing to have material knowledge versus having faith has all but frozen the pursuit of many people's true aspirations in life.

The overflow of information readily available via technology has limited people's ability to think independently and has created a superficial basis of true understanding of a situation.

Odd Behavior

The public vs. private identity has all but become indistinguishable as well, due to mediums, such as Facebook and Twitter. The "anti-answer" to this blatant transparency would be to completely withdraw from society, but any logical person knows this is not realistic.

Yet, the ways people attempt to cultivate relationships with others through social media and file sharing can be- to put it bluntly, quite disturbing.

In the process, human to human interaction has become increasingly more rare and a pervading sense of isolation nows exists in our society- despite the readiness of so much new and useful technology.

Sexuality and the Internet

Sexualized images on the internet are a common occurrence. As long as there is a perception of people wanting to covet women and men (to a lesser extent), both sexes will always remain vulnerable to this.

The idea of people constantly wanting to be with someone has led to another phenomenon known as a "Selfie". A "Selfie" is a photograph taken by an individual for the individual to keep for themselves, or to share with others on social media. Studies have shown that those who take an excessive amount of "Selfies" have underlying issues of narcissism, self-obessesion and possible drug and alcohol issues as well.

By extension, it could also be argued that people's odd behavior on social media could also be a reflection of a dominant male sexist opinion. Females may feel forced to take selfies to make themselves feel more appealing to their male counterparts, or vice versa.

This type of behavior is extremely self-destructive because, if we don't change our thought processes, we become fixed in our motives and beliefs which can ruin self-esteem.

In theory, it is considered self serving, but socially acceptable to not have boundaries in life and be uninhibited. In reality, especially with social media, this approach is completely wrong, and can have catastrophic consequences.

The Internet is Not Reality

The problem with the saturation of social media is that some of us, have begun to lose track of the things we desire- the things that make our life more meaningful. Instead of exercising, we may go on Facebook for an hour instead; instead of reading, we can skim through a quick synopsis of the work online instead and filter out what we like and do not like more quickly.

In many cases with social media, the message is communicated through sound and imagery, not articulation. This makes language tools such as sarcasm and intonation very hard to decipher.

Psychologically, the shared influences of theories, celebrity tweets, and sports updates are transmitted constantly until it becomes part of our subconscious. To some people, using Facebook or Twitter is as natural as breathing.

If one were to create more, instead of consuming, there may be a little more joy in the world.

Dreams Distort Our Reality Too

The power of our dreams signifies what is happening in our subconsciousness; fears, desires and repression are tied into some of our dreams as well. | Source

The influence of our dreams are a symbolic reflection of our subconscious fears, desires and even what we repress ourselves from. The misinterpretations of dreaming can also make us victims in wanting to believe that our dreaming foreshadows our life in some personal way.

The finality of it all is what happens in our waking life- not about what we dream of, or what we share on the internet.

What is undifferentiated in our dreams and our internet lives, suddenly occurs through division in our careers and relationships in the real world. It is very debatable through any dreaming, something meaningful comes to exist in our collective reality.

This is not to say, of course, that sleeping is unimportant. Deep R.E.M. dreaming eliminates extraneous chatter in the brain. Often times however, most people don't achieve this level of detached, dreamless sleep and waking life becomes intertwined and manipulated through the subconscious while dreaming.

Tips to Staying Present in Reality

This all leads us to question what methods we practice to achieve a true understanding of situations.

It is a benefit to mankind to be present in reality and have the ability to understand the feelings of others without the aid of pseudo-sciences, such as dream interpretation, and magical thinking tricks on the internet.

The video to my right lays out the possibilities that exist through breathing techniques that can quiet the mind and lead to truthful understanding of people and situations.

A Precursor to Our Bizarre Times

Grand fantasies verus realties abound in Shelley's famous work "Frankenstein". The collective attitude of the story is that some things should remain unknown- fitting for our age of over saturation and self-exposure. | Source

Quick Points

*Facebook is not a true reflection of one's self, but can have real world consequences

*What you dream of has not been scientifically proven to foreshadow events to come in your waking life

*Be extremely careful of what you share on the internet

*Breathing techniques can help alleviate delusional or obsessive thinking

Conclusion

Many people these days model themselves after what they observe; this is not unusual. When one is forced to learn his or her moral structure by using social media or agonizing over a dream however, it can create an irresponsible sense of self-worth.

There are several instances of people getting divorces, having private pictures put out for the world to see and other difficult problems that social media can create.

When things such as Facebook become God-like to some is usually the same time the beginning of their downfall occurs.

The ability social media and lucid dreaming have is to take us out of our own brain, and make us realize how insignificant we really are in relation to this faux reality. This can be extremely dangerous.

Through proper meditation techniques and staying present to reality, this delusional world can slowly dissipate and one can recover their own place in the real world.

Comments

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sending

Ariel Laur

4 years agofrom New York

This article is like a breath of fresh air! Thank you for writing and sharing this. I would like to re-read it as well. You make so many really important points that I have been aware of but couldn't quite put my finger on. Our internet use has come on so fast there is no time to stop and ask, is this all good? I recently deactivated my facebook account after about 5 years of nearly daily use, (I just checked in mostly) and I couldn't be happier. I noticed a morphing from facebook being a place to share our real lives into a place that is its' own life similar to what you have pointed out.

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